INFORMATION

This website uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some of these cookies are essential to make our site work and others help us to improve by giving us some insight into how the site is being used.

For further information, see our Privacy Policy.

Continuing to use this website is acceptance of these cookies.

We are not accepting any new registrations.

Are there any moral facts?

Enter here to explore ethical issues and discuss the meaning and source of morality.
Post Reply

Are there any moral facts?

Poll ended at January 1st, 2011, 5:50 pm

Yes.
4
25%
No.
10
63%
I'm not sure.
0
No votes
Other (I'll explain in my post...).
2
13%
 
Total votes: 16

Message
Author
User avatar
animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#101 Post by animist » January 3rd, 2011, 6:39 pm

Latest post of the previous page:

Emma Woolgatherer wrote: the Golden Rule is one of those ideas that crops up all over the place. It doesn't belong to humanists any more than it belongs to Christians or Confucians. And I'm not aware that there's a uniquely humanist formulation of it.)
true, but as I was addressing a humanist forum I thought I should use the word.
Emma Woolgatherer wrote: You can be quite selfish, I think, and still adopt the Golden Rule of Thumb in order to increase your chances of surviving and living comfortably and peacefully (if that's what you want). It could be as much a matter of prudence as morality.
largely true, which reflects, as I said in the trolley thread, that maybe one just does not often get the opportunity to decide about being moral and in what way. And as you say (and I believe that you are naturally a moral person) we get used to doing sort of the right thing. But sometimes one can get away with being dishonest or selfish or nasty - so I would think that choosing to apply the GR (or at least to try doing this) does come into play - that's why I asked all the questions.
Emma Woolgatherer wrote: I don't think "objective" means the same as "valid", although I suppose there's a slight overlap in the dictionary definitions.
well, this is what I have come to be arguing in our previous exchanges, and it is necessary for my belief that at least some moral statements can be valid or true - they cannot be objective as there is no object for them to relate to or be verified by.
Emma Woolgatherer wrote: But I could say also that my own moral judgements are not necessarily valid, either, in that they are not all well grounded in logic and they don't all have legal force.
not sure what you mean - obviously your and everyone else's statements, moral or not, are often not logical, and what has legal force got to do with this?
Emma Woolgatherer wrote:I think that some moral statements are of greater value than others, but then I would, wouldn't I, because I'm the judge of that value. I don't think that some moral statements are objectively of greater value than others. But where there is a high level of intersubjective agreement, as there is in so many cases, it is possible to talk as if they were [---][/---] or perhaps impossible not to talk as if they were.
well, this the crux of it. Let's stop using the word "objective" as we seem to agree that it does not mean, or be necessary for, truth or validity in moral statements. Yes, you can't escape the position that you (and I) are both inside the system (of making judgments about things and people) and simultaneously trying to be outside, in the meta-ethical sense of making judgments about judgments and systems. This is where you and I differ, as I think we can say with some certainty that statements like "Causing unnecessary pain is wrong" are in their own way simply true. Of course I can't prove this, but I would challenge anyone to argue the opposite. This is the line I am taking below over Thundril's example of the nazi and yours over the incest taboo (unfortunately - in a sense! - there is noone on TH who holds these views, or defends slavery, my other example, so I will have to think for them).

Take the nazi first. I assume that the case for nazism in fact relies on a large number of empirically falsifiable claims about eg the natural superiority of the white Aryan race (fitness to rule), the paradoxical claim that it is threatened by races which are inferior in some way, that mongrelisation is weakening the race, that race and nation are "objective", and so on; these arguments would need disentangling, but in principle I think the false factual claims could be stripped away. Would any genuinely deep ethical difference remain between the nazi and the liberal? Who knows, but it is for the relativist to prove that such a difference remains. If anything (and I get the impression that this applies to Thundril's nazi), the difference might simply be that the nazi is essentially amoral, egoistic and openly unethical, rather than holding a different ethic from the liberal: he says in effect, I can do as I please, why shouldn't I, and if I care about anyone if is about my nearest and dearest - at the expense of justice, equality, human rights and all the other things that the liberal holds dear. The nazi might of course talk about Nietzsche and his superman philosophy, but without the systematic and disprovable racism this could never constitute any justification for nazism. Please note that I am not claiming that there are no differences between the ethical views of individuals or societies (and of course in the sincerity, consistency and commitment with which they hold these views), but I am claiming that it is unproven how important these are when viewed apart from the confusion of assumptions and factual claims. The taboo (on incest) champion would I imagine be even more easily be challenged if one had the opportunity to show that the disasters which he claimed would result from breaking taboos just did not occur; since incest can in fact have undesirable genetic effects, however, this disproof is unlikely to happen, though maybe eventually a test case will come up in which barren and related people might wish to marry; I imagine that adult siblings do often have sex and the incest law appears not to be used much.

So that is one strand of my argument: that I believe actually challenging unenlightened (I know that's a loaded word) people could separate out the differences between moral and empirical. The other is that I think that we do make moral progress (very much a meta-ethical view), simply because we can look back on the societies of the past and see how their deeply held moral systems depended on their society's needs (for instance, 17C slave-based societies had to draw on the Bible to justify their practices, and Aristotle defined slaves as human tools). As Wilson says, our empathy has widened considerably to include all men and women, and we are starting to include other sentient beings. With all our faults, we are wealthy enough not to need to lie or enslave, and knowledgeable enough to make these judgments; the position is simply asymmetric (we do know more than they did) and thus there is no ground for relativism. Of course, we are always changing, and many things which we may now think morally OK (or at least tolerate) may be rejected in the future (I am thinking about huge disparities of wealth between nations and individuals and about our treatment of animals, but there could be other future attitude changes about which I have no inkling). But remember that I am not holding up all our current society's moral attitudes as correct, only a few basic ones - like the one I mentioned, or the judgment that one should try to keep one's word unless there is a good reason not to.

I don't think that either of you (Emma and Thundril), or maybe anyone else who has contributed to this thread (eg Wilson), is in fact a moral relativist in the sense of claiming that one society's norms are just as good as another, but just in case, I would like to mention the neat demolition of ethical relativism in Peter Cave's book.
Emma wrote:As for whether I'm a moral relativist, well, this is where the jargon comes in again. I'm a descriptive relativist, in that I recognise that people have different ideas aboutwhat is the morally right course of action in a particular circumstance.
but surely this would be true of all of us? Are these your own definitions or are they from a source? You've mentioned Mackie, but I have not read his book, only a few writeups
Emma wrote:I'm not a meta-ethical relativist, in that I don't reject objective moral values just to replace them with culturally specific ones.
I am not sure that is what meta-ethical relativists say, but again I don't know where you have got this from
Emma wrote:Moral values vary within cultures as well as between them. And I am not a normative relativist, in that I don't believe we should always accept the behaviour of others when it runs counter to our personal or cultural moral standards. People will inevitably try to act on the basis of their own (genuinely held) moral values, and try to persuade others to act on the same moral values.
well yes, that is what I am trying to do, although, to repeat, it would be more convincing if there was a real someone with radically different views to challenge (of course, maybe if I did debate with a nazi, he would win and I would end up a nazi!). It is the normative relativist, who says we SHOULD accept any old crap (like stoning people for adultery), for the sake of multiculturalism, who is the target for Cave (since it obviously is itself making a moral judgment). I would say that you were a subjectivist rather than a relativist (for what it's worth).
Emma wrote:
animist wrote:If so, is this compatible with the Golden Rule and with any other moral judgments that you make?
Er ... yes, I ... I think so. But talking about this is a bit tricky, because our language is geared up to the idea that there are objective moral values, and it's very hard to step away from that
not sure this is true, or at least it is no more true for moral than for aesthetic value-statements, as you have previously reminded me. But these hypothetical imperatives you mention are not moral statements at all, are they? They just say that if some particular thing is to be achieved, then some other particular thing "should" be performed.

To end for now (yes, I think I should!), I do think it is a bit funny of humanists in general to claim the Golden Rule as their ethical base yet not want to actively defend its validity or value!

David Flint
Posts: 22
Joined: October 22nd, 2007, 4:45 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#102 Post by David Flint » January 4th, 2011, 11:18 am

Emma Woolgatherer wrote: Take the nazi first. I assume that the case for nazism in fact relies on a large number of empirically falsifiable claims about eg the natural superiority of the white Aryan race (fitness to rule), the paradoxical claim that it is threatened by races which are inferior in some way, that mongrelisation is weakening the race, that race and nation are "objective", and so on; these arguments would need disentangling, but in principle I think the false factual claims could be stripped away. Would any genuinely deep ethical difference remain between the nazi and the liberal? ...
I think there would. If the Nazi's claim depends on contestable facts then his most fundamental principle is not Aryan superiority (or whatever) but something else which entails Aryan superiority if certain facts are true. But the original statement was that racial/tribal superiority was the Nazi's fundamental principle in which case refuting the factual claims leaves the principle untouched.

You can show that the Nazi is giving overwhelming weight to a factor that is less coherent than he thinks - but not that he is wrong to do so.

User avatar
Emma Woolgatherer
Posts: 2976
Joined: February 27th, 2008, 12:17 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#103 Post by Emma Woolgatherer » January 4th, 2011, 6:01 pm

David Flint wrote:
Emma Woolgatherer wrote: Take the nazi first ...
Oh no she didn't.

Emma

User avatar
animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#104 Post by animist » January 4th, 2011, 7:09 pm

Emma Woolgatherer wrote:
David Flint wrote:
Emma Woolgatherer wrote: Take the nazi first ...
Oh no she didn't.

Emma
hi Emma, been to a Xmas panto? I suppose eventually there will be one based on "The Producers", which resembles panto

User avatar
Emma Woolgatherer
Posts: 2976
Joined: February 27th, 2008, 12:17 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#105 Post by Emma Woolgatherer » January 4th, 2011, 7:43 pm

animist wrote:
Emma Woolgatherer wrote:But I could say also that my own moral judgements are not necessarily valid, either, in that they are not all well grounded in logic and they don't all have legal force.
not sure what you mean - obviously your and everyone else's statements, moral or not, are often not logical, and what has legal force got to do with this?
I was just referring to just a couple of the definitions of "valid": well grounded in logic; having legal force. I don't think the word "valid" is any more precise in meaning than the word "objective".
animist wrote:Let's stop using the word "objective" as we seem to agree that it does not mean, or be necessary for, truth or validity in moral statements.
No, no, I don't think we do agree that. No yet, anyway. And even if we did, I'm still not going to agree to stop using the word "objective". Though I might hold back from using it in this post!
animist wrote:Yes, you can't escape the position that you (and I) are both inside the system (of making judgments about things and people) and simultaneously trying to be outside, in the meta-ethical sense of making judgments about judgments and systems. This is where you and I differ, as I think we can say with some certainty that statements like "Causing unnecessary pain is wrong" are in their own way simply true. Of course I can't prove this, but I would challenge anyone to argue the opposite.
It strikes me that the statement "Causing unnecessary pain is wrong" is not simply anything. There's the whole issue of what criteria we use to determine what is necessary. And there's the matter of the degree of pain. And whether one is talking only about physical pain, or about emotional pain too. In my understanding, eating the flesh of mammals, birds and certain other animals (the ones Richard Ryder would call "painient") necessarily entails causing some pain (as does simply bringing an animal, including a human, into the world). If eating animal flesh is not necessary to keep someone alive and reasonably healthy, then does that mean that eating the flesh of mammals and birds is wrong? Or does "necessary" mean something a bit broader than that? And what other statements would you classify as statements like that one? How about "Telling lies is wrong"? Is that "in its own way simply true"? Or is the truth or falsity of moral statements like that inevitably a bit more complicated?
animist wrote:This is the line I am taking below over Thundril's example of the nazi and yours over the incest taboo (unfortunately - in a sense! - there is noone on TH who holds these views, or defends slavery, my other example, so I will have to think for them) ... The taboo (on incest) champion would I imagine be even more easily be challenged if one had the opportunity to show that the disasters which he claimed would result from breaking taboos just did not occur; since incest can in fact have undesirable genetic effects, however, this disproof is unlikely to happen, though maybe eventually a test case will come up in which barren and related people might wish to marry; I imagine that adult siblings do often have sex and the incest law appears not to be used much.
I'm sorry, animist, but you've lost me here. I'm not quite sure what you're saying. I do think, though, that it is usually relatively easy to argue against the incest taboo on the basis of the ethical views held by the person with whom one is arguing (which seems to me to be the best way to go about making these sorts of challenges). If that person is relying for their case on the risk of undesirable genetic effects, then one can ask whether, on that basis, a woman over 40, or someone who has a disease with a high degree of heritability, or who is carrying a gene for such a disease, should be prohibited from marrying, or having sex. I've yet to find someone who believes that they should.
animist wrote:So that is one strand of my argument: that I believe actually challenging unenlightened (I know that's a loaded word) people could separate out the differences between moral and empirical. The other is that I think that we do make moral progress (very much a meta-ethical view), simply because we can look back on the societies of the past and see how their deeply held moral systems depended on their society's needs ... As Wilson says, our empathy has widened considerably to include all men and women, and we are starting to include other sentient beings. With all our faults, we are wealthy enough not to need to lie or enslave, and knowledgeable enough to make these judgments; the position is simply asymmetric (we do know more than they did) and thus there is no ground for relativism. Of course, we are always changing, and many things which we may now think morally OK (or at least tolerate) may be rejected in the future (I am thinking about huge disparities of wealth between nations and individuals and about our treatment of animals, but there could be other future attitude changes about which I have no inkling).
Yes, this is something that fascinates me. It seems inevitable that there will be attitude changes. If I could somehow discover what they were going to be, would I find myself thinking, "Oh, yes, of course. Why didn't that occur to me?" Or might I think that some of them were changes in the wrong direction? We can't be sure of continuous moral progress, can we?
animist wrote:But remember that I am not holding up all our current society's moral attitudes as correct, only a few basic ones - like the one I mentioned, or the judgment that one should try to keep one's word unless there is a good reason not to.
Ah, that partly answers my question above. But I still don't quite get the justification for the claim that those basic moral attitudes are "correct". I don't expect proof. Just something a bit more tangible that what you've offered so far.
animist wrote:I don't think that either of you (Emma and Thundril), or maybe anyone else who has contributed to this thread (eg Wilson), is in fact a moral relativist in the sense of claiming that one society's norms are just as good as another, but just in case, I would like to mention the neat demolition of ethical relativism in Peter Cave's book.
No, not "just as good as another". But that, it seems, would be the view of a radical meta-ethical moral relativist (see below).
animist wrote:
Emma wrote:As for whether I'm a moral relativist, well, this is where the jargon comes in again. I'm a descriptive relativist, in that I recognise that people have different ideas about what is the morally right course of action in a particular circumstance.
but surely this would be true of all of us? Are these your own definitions or are they from a source? You've mentioned Mackie, but I have not read his book, only a few writeups
These definitions are given in the entry on Relativism in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, but they crop up in various places, including Wikipedia.
animist wrote:
Emma wrote:I'm not a meta-ethical relativist, in that I don't reject objective moral values just to replace them with culturally specific ones.
I am not sure that is what meta-ethical relativists say, but again I don't know where you have got this from
I'm sorry: I've misrepresented meta-ethical relativism on top of not being particularly clear. This is something I'd like to come back to, but for the moment I'll say that I believe that some moral attitudes are more justifiable than others, but it seems that doesn't necessarily stop me from being a meta-ethical relativist. Perhaps I'm a moderate meta-ethical relativist, rather than a radical meta-ethical relativist!
animist wrote:It is the normative relativist, who says we SHOULD accept any old crap (like stoning people for adultery), for the sake of multiculturalism, who is the target for Cave (since it obviously is itself making a moral judgment). I would say that you were a subjectivist rather than a relativist (for what it's worth).
Perhaps. But I still prefer "moral sceptic" for now.
animist wrote:
Emma wrote:... our language is geared up to the idea that there are objective moral values, and it's very hard to step away from that
not sure this is true, or at least it is no more true for moral than for aesthetic value-statements, as you have previously reminded me.
I think it is more true for moral than for aesthetic value-statements because there is more of a widespread acceptance that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and "there's no accounting for taste" and "de gustibus non est disputandum". So although the language contains similar traps, it does offer some escape routes too. There's also the issue that moral relativism (and anything that looks a bit like moral relativism) is something that is widely frowned upon, especially by religious leaders and thinkers, as you've pointed out before. I have certainly been reluctant to identify myself as a moral relativist in the past, and it looks like I still am! I don't want to play into the hands of those who claim that morality can only come from religion.
animist wrote:But these hypothetical imperatives you mention are not moral statements at all, are they? They just say that if some particular thing is to be achieved, then some other particular thing "should" be performed.
Yes, precisely. What I'm wondering is whether the kind of statements that we think of as moral statements contain hidden "if" clauses. And that if we spelt those out, then we might have a chance of coming up with statements that you and I could agree on as being "true" or "valid" or "objective" or ... whatever, but that still say something useful about how we should live our lives.
animist wrote:To end for now (yes, I think I should!), I do think it is a bit funny of humanists in general to claim the Golden Rule as their ethical base yet not want to actively defend its validity or value!
Well, I'm not sure that humanists in general have claimed the Golden Rule as their ethical base, or that humanists in general are unwilling to defend its validity or value. But I don't see anything necessarily wrong with specific humanists choosing ethical principles that they don't see as universally valid. "It works for me" seems to be a reasonable approach. Still, it wouldn't be enough to stop one being a target for religious censure.

Emma

thundril
Posts: 3607
Joined: July 4th, 2008, 5:02 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#106 Post by thundril » January 4th, 2011, 9:14 pm

David Flint wrote:
Emma Woolgatherer wrote: Take the nazi first. I assume that the case for nazism in fact relies on a large number of empirically falsifiable claims about eg the natural superiority of the white Aryan race (fitness to rule), the paradoxical claim that it is threatened by races which are inferior in some way, that mongrelisation is weakening the race, that race and nation are "objective", and so on; these arguments would need disentangling, but in principle I think the false factual claims could be stripped away. Would any genuinely deep ethical difference remain between the nazi and the liberal? ...
I think there would. If the Nazi's claim depends on contestable facts then his most fundamental principle is not Aryan superiority (or whatever) but something else which entails Aryan superiority if certain facts are true. But the original statement was that racial/tribal superiority was the Nazi's fundamental principle
That's not what I said at all. In fact the 'Nazi philosopher' I cited backed away very quickly from his initial attempt to defend the 'scientific basis' for racial superiority, relying instead on the idea of 'Blood and Honour' as the justification for preferring one's own family, tribe, nation over all others. He accepted that this was only a prefence, but claimed it was more natural and more practical than my 'preference' for universal human rights.

User avatar
animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#107 Post by animist » January 4th, 2011, 9:26 pm

thundril wrote:That's not what I said at all. In fact the 'Nazi philosopher' I cited backed away very quickly from his initial attempt to defend the 'scientific basis' for racial superiority, relying instead on the idea of 'Blood and Honour' as the justification for preferring one's own family, tribe, nation over all others. He accepted that this was only a prefence, but claimed it was more natural and more practical than my 'preference' for universal human rights.
you have sort of hit the nail on the head. If you read my long post to Emma, I sounded confident that I (or someone like me but more proficient) could deconstruct this nazi. It would however be difficult once he abandoned any pseudoscience and relied on emotive words like "blood" and "honour", I should admit; "blood" might be possible to dismantle, since what does it mean if not an earthily emotive way of saying "race", but "honour"? What does it mean? Nothing, because it is almost purely emotive/normative (and of course constantly used by those latter-day fascists, the the Islamists). I would have my work cut out, I have to admit. Maybe we should in this forum not just passively accept interlopers (like Xians) but solicit some neonazis for target practice!

thundril
Posts: 3607
Joined: July 4th, 2008, 5:02 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#108 Post by thundril » January 4th, 2011, 9:48 pm

animist wrote:[ Maybe we should in this forum not just passively accept interlopers (like Xians) but solicit some neonazis for target practice!
Count me out, Animist.
This debate was a very long time ago, and I only engaged in it for very special reasons. My normal approach to the theoreticians of Nazism is more on the lines of the subtitle of one of their favourite books: Wie man mit ein Hammer philosophiert!

User avatar
animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#109 Post by animist » January 17th, 2011, 11:33 pm

Emma Woolgatherer wrote:I was just referring to just a couple of the definitions of "valid": well grounded in logic; having legal force. I don't think the word "valid" is any more precise in meaning than the word "objective".
no indeed, but I assume it ("valid") pertains to arguments rather than statements. I think we should stick with "true"
Emma wrote:It strikes me that the statement "Causing unnecessary pain is wrong" is not simply anything. There's the whole issue of what criteria we use to determine what is necessary. And there's the matter of the degree of pain. And whether one is talking only about physical pain, or about emotional pain too. In my understanding, eating the flesh of mammals, birds and certain other animals (the ones Richard Ryder would call "painient") necessarily entails causing some pain (as does simply bringing an animal, including a human, into the world). If eating animal flesh is not necessary to keep someone alive and reasonably healthy, then does that mean that eating the flesh of mammals and birds is wrong? Or does "necessary" mean something a bit broader than that? And what other statements would you classify as statements like that one? How about "Telling lies is wrong"? Is that "in its own way simply true"? Or is the truth or falsity of moral statements like that inevitably a bit more complicated?
yes, I should have stuck with my earlier examples like "The nazis were wrong to try to destroy the Jews" (actually this was not quite my previous example, but I should try to use examples which do not have morally loaded terms like "persecute"). Yes of course what you say is all correct. What I have been claiming earlier on in the thread was that there are true moral statements - like the one I have just mentioned and the truth-telling one. These statements can be very general ones, like the one about telling lies, and in these cases they are prima facie true only - eg it is not wrong to tell lies if this is to save lives. The one about the Jews is a sort of conclusion to a moral argument on the lines of "It is wrong to kill (without a very strong reason), and there was no such reason to try killing the entire Jewish people"
Emma Woolgatherer wrote: I do think, though, that it is usually relatively easy to argue against the incest taboo on the basis of the ethical views held by the person with whom one is arguing (which seems to me to be the best way to go about making these sorts of challenges). If that person is relying for their case on the risk of undesirable genetic effects, then one can ask whether, on that basis, a woman over 40, or someone who has a disease with a high degree of heritability, or who is carrying a gene for such a disease, should be prohibited from marrying, or having sex. I've yet to find someone who believes that they should.
agreed, and I think what you say backs up what I was trying to say before, viz that often, ethical differences can disappear if we get the facts right.
Emma Woolgatherer wrote:Yes, this is something that fascinates me. It seems inevitable that there will be attitude changes. If I could somehow discover what they were going to be, would I find myself thinking, "Oh, yes, of course. Why didn't that occur to me?" Or might I think that some of them were changes in the wrong direction? We can't be sure of continuous moral progress, can we?
no we can't, and I said that in the last post. But that is consistent with saying that we have in fact made moral progress for the reasons I gave. I have just read a review of Kwame Appiah's new book on honour, where he seems to argue that moral change happens in cases where the "honour" elite loses its exclusivity (examples are upper class British duelling, and Chinese foot-binding). This sounds right, and ever-increasing equality should, if it occurs, erode notions of honour - I'm sure we all hope so, anyway
Emma Woolgatherer wrote:
animist wrote:But remember that I am not holding up all our current society's moral attitudes as correct, only a few basic ones - like the one I mentioned, or the judgment that one should try to keep one's word unless there is a good reason not to.
Ah, that partly answers my question above. But I still don't quite get the justification for the claim that those basic moral attitudes are "correct". I don't expect proof. Just something a bit more tangible that what you've offered so far.
not sure what you mean by "tangible". As I said before, these "truths" cannot be verified, but in the absence of anyone nowadays disputing them, I think it fair enough to call them true
Emma Woolgatherer wrote: I have certainly been reluctant to identify myself as a moral relativist in the past, and it looks like I still am! I don't want to play into the hands of those who claim that morality can only come from religion.
to repeat, that is the problem with appearing to be a moral relativist. Maybe "moral agnosticism" would be closer to what you seem to be - you know what you believe but you do not think that you can know it
Emma Woolgatherer wrote:
animist wrote:But these hypothetical imperatives you mention are not moral statements at all, are they? They just say that if some particular thing is to be achieved, then some other particular thing "should" be performed.
Yes, precisely. What I'm wondering is whether the kind of statements that we think of as moral statements contain hidden "if" clauses. And that if we spelt those out, then we might have a chance of coming up with statements that you and I could agree on as being "true" or "valid" or "objective" or ... whatever, but that still say something useful about how we should live our lives.
sorry, do not understand this; if anything I would favour moral statements of a negative hypothetical structure using the word "unless" rather than "if", eg "one should keep one's promises unless there is a very strong reason to break them"
Emma wrote:
animist wrote:To end for now...I do think it is a bit funny of humanists in general to claim the Golden Rule as their ethical base yet not want to actively defend its validity or value!
Well, I'm not sure that humanists in general have claimed the Golden Rule as their ethical base, or that humanists in general are unwilling to defend its validity or value. But I don't see anything necessarily wrong with specific humanists choosing ethical principles that they don't see as universally valid. "It works for me" seems to be a reasonable approach. Still, it wouldn't be enough to stop one being a target for religious censure.
that's what bothers me, and that also "works for me" sounds too casual - surely a moral code ipso facto does try to apply universally (I remember R. M. Hare's views that the defining characteristics of moral statements were prescriptivity and universalisability); if something is true or valid, it is true or valid universally surely (and by that I don't mean absolutely - there can be exceptions, which is why I keep mentioning the "prima facie" idea, but the exceptions too must be argued for and be universal in principle).

peterangus
Posts: 159
Joined: November 13th, 2007, 2:55 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#110 Post by peterangus » January 18th, 2011, 10:44 am

My take on a BBC Radio4 [beyond belief] discussion.
Attachments
articulate aligators.jpg
articulate aligators.jpg (84.28 KiB) Viewed 3466 times
Peter Angus

Nick
Posts: 11027
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 10:10 am

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#111 Post by Nick » January 18th, 2011, 3:21 pm

:laughter: My view exactly, Peter! I usually cite praying mantises, but you cartoon is much better! I notice the croc on the left has a clerical collar :laughter: Nice touch. I assume the croc with his (?) back to us is the moderator. The others are labelled A and Z. I'm guessing A is for atheist. Z... for zionist...?

User avatar
animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#112 Post by animist » January 18th, 2011, 5:32 pm

Nick wrote::laughter: My view exactly, Peter! I usually cite praying mantises, but you cartoon is much better! I notice the croc on the left has a clerical collar :laughter: Nice touch. I assume the croc with his (?) back to us is the moderator. The others are labelled A and Z. I'm guessing A is for atheist. Z... for zionist...?
does their golden rule come from their croc of gold? And is Z saying to the vicar "It was Alec ate her!" Lastly, is the vicar listed in "Crocfords"?

Fia
Posts: 5480
Joined: July 6th, 2007, 8:29 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#113 Post by Fia » January 18th, 2011, 7:10 pm

Many thanks for that peterangus. That image will be in my head every time I listen to "beyond belief" :D
It's a programme that could do with more teeth....

Radius
Posts: 133
Joined: January 25th, 2011, 5:54 am

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#114 Post by Radius » January 30th, 2011, 5:54 am

No. All moral statements are contingent.

User avatar
animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#115 Post by animist » January 30th, 2011, 8:47 am

Radius wrote:No. All moral statements are contingent.
but so are many undoubted facts

Radius
Posts: 133
Joined: January 25th, 2011, 5:54 am

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#116 Post by Radius » January 30th, 2011, 8:57 am

animist wrote:
Radius wrote:No. All moral statements are contingent.
but so are many undoubted facts
Yes, contingent on philosophical naturalism, which is a set of opinions I have obviously chosen to accept. There's a difference though here. Say I'm on Ganymede, by myself, in some kind of self-sufficient colony. I could ignore alleged human moral "facts" here easily. However I would have a harder time denying ostensible physical facts, such as: "If I open both airlock doors at once the atmosphere will rush out and I will die."

User avatar
animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#117 Post by animist » January 30th, 2011, 9:04 am

Radius wrote:
animist wrote:
Radius wrote:No. All moral statements are contingent.
but so are many undoubted facts
Yes, contingent on philosophical naturalism, which is a set of opinions I have obviously chosen to accept. There's a difference though here. Say I'm on Ganymede, by myself, in some kind of self-sufficient colony. I could ignore alleged human moral "facts" here easily. However I would have a harder time denying ostensible physical facts, such as: "If I open both airlock doors at once the atmosphere will rush out and I will die."
well obviously the question of morality does not really arise with no other humans (or sentient beings) around - unless one is religious. And what you say is what I meant, though I don't think the contingency of things like vacuum death somehow depends on your choosing to accept them - they are simply true, but contingently and not necessarily

Radius
Posts: 133
Joined: January 25th, 2011, 5:54 am

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#118 Post by Radius » January 30th, 2011, 9:06 am

animist wrote:well obviously the question of morality does not really arise with no other humans (or sentient beings) around - unless one is religious.
yeah

I like Human Objective Moralities™

there are so many to choose from

User avatar
animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#119 Post by animist » January 31st, 2011, 10:26 am

Radius wrote:
animist wrote:well obviously the question of morality does not really arise with no other humans (or sentient beings) around - unless one is religious.
yeah

I like Human Objective Moralities™

there are so many to choose from
which is your favourite?

thundril
Posts: 3607
Joined: July 4th, 2008, 5:02 pm

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#120 Post by thundril » January 31st, 2011, 3:09 pm

Radius wrote: Yes, contingent on philosophical naturalism, which is a set of opinions I have obviously chosen to accept.
In what sense have you 'obviously chosen to accept' a set of opinions? Is this evidence of 'free will'?

Radius
Posts: 133
Joined: January 25th, 2011, 5:54 am

Re: Are there any moral facts?

#121 Post by Radius » January 31st, 2011, 5:27 pm

thundril wrote:
Radius wrote: Yes, contingent on philosophical naturalism, which is a set of opinions I have obviously chosen to accept.
In what sense have you 'obviously chosen to accept' a set of opinions? Is this evidence of 'free will'?
choice doesn't entail free will; just agency

Post Reply